This is an excerpt from the third chapter of By Water and the Word: God’s Gift of Baptism for You by Brian Thomas (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 52-60.
Even when the bitter places sink down deep into our bones, the Restorer never relinquishes his grip on you.
To Live Well is therefore not a general advice book, but a message suffused with the gospel.

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May we, as preachers, rise and proclaim that Jesus Christ is sufficient for all our spiritual hunger.
God has told us everything necessary for faith. However he has not told us everything there is to know.
"Every one must stand and give account before God for himself; and no one can excuse himself by the action or decision of another, whether less or more.”
Although the outcome has been decided by Jesus victory, the devil won’t give up without a fight.
A rightly-oriented heart and a rightly-oriented love will consistently do what is best for God and best for our neighbor, which is why St. Augustine speaks of sin as a disordered love.
While we often talk about our growth, our progress, and what we are doing for the kingdom of God, the reality is that any goodness in a Christian does not originate in us.
Christians can pursue projects of justice free of the burden of being the justifier of the world; that office belongs to Christ and Christ alone.
The Scriptures consistently speak about sanctification as a sure gift for the Christian.
There’s a difference between refusing revenge and refusing responsibility.
The crisis is not merely that people are leaving. The crisis is that we have relinquished what is uniquely Lutheran and deeply needed.
Christmas is not only about a cradle in Bethlehem, it’s also about a cross outside Jerusalem where salvation was won for us.
This ancient “tale of two mothers” concerns far more than theological semantics—it is the difference between a God who sends and a God who comes.